Chris Saad is onto something, he says "Open is not enough, time to raise the bar: Interoperable."

But I think the idea that Chris is really searching for is Replaceable.

Think of it this way. There is no root to the web. There is no home page. No place you have to go first before you go anywhere else. Same idea -- there shouldn't be any center to the graph-of-everything. That's where the bar should be set. And Facebook ain't even in the ballpark.

It's nice that Facebook has graph.facebook.com, except it should also be XML. And they should be willing to point into graph.scripting.com, and graph.whitehouse.gov and graph.yourserver.org. Anyone should be able to operate a graph. And of course we should be able to point into graph.facebook.com, and not just at the root, but into any bit of data they expose.

Then everyone is on an equal footing. I don't care if their format was approved by the W3C, all that means is that it'll be a kitchen-sink format with all the BigCo's getting to screw with it until interop isn't even remotely possible for anyone without a $100 million development budget. Screw the corporate-owned standards bodies. Instead be open in the only way that truly matters -- replaceable. And to be replaceable the format has to be simple. That way you have to always be earning your market, by providing superior value, functionality, performance, price and trust.

If there's any lock-in at all it doesn't matter if you call it open.

PS: To Chris, white-on-black text is really hard on older eyes. Be kind to everyone and stick with black-on-white.